[spectre] Net Community Hacks Cultural Funding System

[Hans Bernhard]

Net Community Hacks Cultural Funding System


Vienna, 2 May 2006


“Our much-discussed, game-theory-oriented approach to cultural  
funding represents a clear rejection of all the Austrian cultural  
industry’s hegemonic tendencies,” states MANA coordinator Stefan  
Lutschinger: “This hack of the outmoded jury and committee system  
opposes every rationalistic funding cut with pure difference,  
contingency coping and the fruitful development of paradox.”

Software-based Funding Distribution

Last week, a participatory cultural support budget of 125,000 euros  
was distributed to artists and cultural producers in Vienna using the  
MANA Community Game – an innovative software-supported selection  
process. The decision regarding the distribution of funding was not  
made by curators, juries or committees, but by the submitters  
themselves. Twelve people will receive project grants between 5,000  
and 15,000 euros, whereby 42% of the recipients are women.

“Old” Concepts and “New Thinking”

The Community Game is one of the most innovative distribution systems  
for cultural funding worldwide. It is based on “old” concepts of the  
avant-garde – auto-curating and self-organization – and the “new  
thinking” of second-order cybernetics. MANA’s great advantage is its  
capacity for self-correction and adaptation to intelligent system  
environments: errors and irregularities can be recognized and  
corrected immediately by the net community, which emerges  
strengthened from this process. Here 120 submitters agreed to a  
complex set of rules.

A Self-managed Cultural Funding Budget

Since the autumn of 2004, the open net community “netznetz.net” has  
grown out of the numerous digital cultural initiatives that have  
developed in Vienna in recent years. In order to do justice to these  
diverse cultural and artistic modes of expression, an application has  
been made to the City of Vienna’s Department of Cultural Affairs (Net  
Culture Unit) for a self-managed cultural funding budget to support  
this very active scene with around 500,000 euros yearly. The heart of  
this funding model is the software-based selection process MANA.  
After a two-month evaluation phase in early summer, the net community  
will decide on its specific adaptation and further development.


Inquiries:

Stefan Lutschinger, Johannes Grenzfurthner, Hans Bernhard
Email: s.lutschinger at digitaldrafts.at
+43 660 6538616
http://mana.netznetz.net
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netznetz
http://www.parliaments-of-art.net





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